The Raven's Roost

I'm bidding on a 1964 set of the Childcraft Annual How & Why Library. The listing has all 15 volumes, listed as being in good condition from a smoke-free home.

And I'm buying it for the illustrations.

I had this same set as a kid, and I know I've mentioned the pleasant afternoons I spent browsing my Mom's collection of art books. The How & Why Library was part of my eye candy diet, and even when I was well beyond the intended level of the books, I liked flipping through them to enjoy the illustrations.

When I was working in Louisiana someone donated an old set just like this, and I had to keep my hands off - it needed to go to the kids' library, not into the trunk of my car. Since then I've occasionally searched around places like Etsy and eBay looking for sets, and I've asked at some of the better local used book shops. Oddly enough, Chamblin Bookmine never got a set from the era I'm looking for. So while I'm trying to reduce my personal spending, or as I sometimes put it, "stop buying dumb shit," I think this will actually be a good use of my money, if I look at it from the ratio of dollars spent to happy hours. A few years ago I found a copy of one of Mom's art textbooks I'd particularly liked and bought it, and I do not regret that purchase at all. Not that it was super expensive.

Unless someone really starts sniping at me in a few hours, I'll have this one, and the shipping is stupid-cheap for some reason.

The story behind this image is an Osprey scientist who decides to start studying fish in a local lake that have mutated and become inedible. She flew out to pick up a sample and is heading back to the lab against a stormy sky. It was inspired by a news story about how plastics and other man-made chemicals in the water are acting as mutagenics in fish. I know that most mutations aren't like in the movies and the offspring simply die, but the image felt like something that needed to be drawn.

I also wondered how she's holding the jar without use of her claws, and I decided the gloves are rubber, so they have added grip.

Did you know that sometimes an Osprey can have their claws so deeply embedded in a fish that, when the fish dives deeper under the water to try to escape, they drag the Osprey with them and the bird drowns?

I figured I haven't done a sketch dump in a while so I'm going to post some WIP and stuff. As usual, click on them to see the big versions.

The Ecstasy of St. Beryl - St. Beryl isn't real, by the way. At least not that I'm aware of. But in Muna, she's the patron saint of animal healers. Her story says that she was struck by lightning on multiple occasions. She lived in a hilly but open area and was constantly outdoors tending livestock or doing gardening work. After one strike, she was said to have developed the ability to understand animals' speech, including that of bugs, frogs, and other small creatures. Knowing that, she was able to help animals that came to her in distress. She is also, obviously, patron of lightning strike survivors. This one's coming along nicely, except that I think the halo of electricity needs to be wider, and I think I made the isopod way too cute.

The bug and caterpillar are huge on purpose, I wanted to give it a feeling of being iconography that is unfamiliar. You know it means something, but since you're a stranger around here, you aren't sure what.

Hilly Landscape - literally just practicing landscapes.

Moon Moth and Deer - this needs a better title. I spent some time this morning adding the shading and started doing some color on the moth. So the color looks a little muddy at the moment. I actually sketched this same idea twice, apparently forgetting after the first time. But I like this version better - the earlier one had a reindeer, and I don't think reindeer and luna moths share a biome.

Plague Doctor Sketch Page - This is the result of about fifteen minutes of drawing and about seven years of thinking. I don't recall when I first had the idea that Plague Doctors aren't wearing that outfit for protection only, but it's also because they're ... different ... under there. So I've been toying with the idea of a series of images of a Plague Doc and it's child, following the young one's education and eventual ability to practice on its own. Obviously these are just rough ideas and I'll flesh each one out as a separate image later.

Aside from that, I'm starting to sleep deeply a little more, so perhaps the magnesium is working. I might sleep better tonight anyway since it is supposed to get cold again. We've been suffering through a couple of days of high 70s and 80s, for whatever reason. I still feel like a bit of a zombie today but not so bad. Yesterday was kind of rough, as I'm not used to my Tuesdays being so jam-packed busy but it was almost non-stop. Whereas today I had time to clean these images up some and upload them. Anyway, hopefully some good sleep tonight and more art time tomorrow.

I have found myself in something of an artistic slump lately. Maybe not so much a slump as a slouch. Even having a backlog of sketches isn't helping, though often I can scroll through rough or unfinished pieces and find something to work on. But I may be remedying that soon with some gifts to myself. For many years I've called it "restocking the pond." Sometimes I need time out to go sit and flip through art books, and sometimes I need to acquire new (to me, at least) art books for flipping.

I spent many peaceful and happy afternoons as a kid browsing my mom's collection of art books. She had a lot of technique books - think North Light Books, Watson Guptill, etc. But she also had a few collections of particular artists and some encyclopedias of painting and drawing. In high school and college I found collections of the same sort in the school library. My college had an absolutely heroic "oversized" section of nothing but art books. At least three spans of shelves. It was amazing. But being out on my own has meant having to acquire my own art books, but that's not such a bad thing.

Today I ordered a copy of Takato Yamamoto's Coffin of a Chimera. His work reminds me a great deal of Yoshitaka Amano's, mainly in the linework. I've recently fallen into the trap of a mindset on Reddit's art communities where people are trying to "go line-free" and rid their drawings of lines. I don't know why I set my sights on doing that myself when I trained mostly in pen and ink and I value good linework but there you have it. Anyway, his books are pretty pricey. They only seem to come in hardback, and each one is slipcased with an elaborate cut-out to display the cover art, plus they ship from Japan so there's that.

I also rediscovered a series I'd doted on in College - the Society of Illustrators' annual. I purchased a 2018 one, and will be scouring used book shops for more - I used to love piling up in my dorm room with a pot of coffee and a couple of these bigass collections. If you see someone getting rid of some of these I'll be happy to take them off their hands and pay for shipping and such. They're a treasure trove for me.

Just looking at other peoples' work is usually a tonic. It helps lift me out of a creative rut and gives me the impetus to get back in there and Draw Stuff. This morning's shopping was enough to get me started doodling in Corel, so we'll see where that leads.

For a year or so when I first moved to Louisiana, I designed and painted fake album covers for made-up bands. Sometimes I did covers for fake sheet music for songs that don't exist. Because that's a totally normal thing people do. I no longer have any of them, but my two favorites were a band called Anastasia's Ghost, and a cover for the Whiskey Bayou Philharmonic Orchestra's "Sorry State Suite." I mention this because today I did some "cover art" for Muna, even though it's not a paper comic and doesn't need covers.

I had the worst time getting a fire going this morning and I'm still just sitting parked on the couch. It's after one and I really need to get at least a walk in, and some yoga. I know I'll feel a lot better if I do but the motivation to leave the general area of the fire is low.

Not much worth noting has really happened since my last update, at least not in the 'real world.' I am dealing with one of my two or three yearly short-term flus or colds I always seem to get, the last one being in March. So, in other words, right on schedule. I was able to force myself through a long run Sunday but I have a four-miler today and I'm just dead. I might be able to get it done but it's not looking too good. On the other hand I am getting a lot of reading done.

Also just FYI it's extremely unlikely to be The Covids, since my symptoms don't include respiratory problems. I am, as usual, just exhausted, body aches, slight fever, and mental fatigue. It also tends to interrupt my sleep, so the one thing I desperately need is very hard to get.

The only major thing on my mind at the moment is Upcoming Art Challenge Month. As you may or may not know, the originator of the Inktober hashtag has decided to start throwing his weight around. I'm all for creator's rights, until you start using those same rights to troll/endrun around other peoples' rights and profit off their efforts. To me, this is just like Walmart trying to trademark the yellow smiley face, or the NFL trying to assert the rights to "who dat." No. Just, no. So I happened across Culture Hustle's answer, Pinktober. Their prompts are wittier and as I wanted to use this as an opportunity to do some world development for Muna, I won't have to worry about someone trying to horn in on the project uninvited just because I used his framework.

So I'm just finishing up works in progress at the moment to clear the decks for October. After that's done I will likely start drawing Lora - that is, digitally producing pages of it. I went back and rewrote a section to close a massive plot hole, but the basic script is almost done. I'll be trying to finish up the character designs as well.

And for you pumpkin spice latte fans...

I managed to get all my errands done yesterday, though I was exhausted when I got home. Dealing with going out and being around people is incredibly draining - I felt like I could have taken a nap. I'm always in need of serious battery recharging after a day out like that, but I'm also the kind of person who needs a vacation to recover from being on vacation. Anyway, I wound up in Fleming Island looking for oddball plumbing parts, as we're running a water line to the garage to install a sink. Nothing fancy, just hot and cold running water for soaking and cleaning things and washing our hands if needed. Instead of trying to get in the house by manipulating the doorknob with your elbows because your hands are covered in grease.

Anyway, Inktober 2020 prompts will be released on September 8, and since I'm not going anywhere this year I think I'm going to try doing this again. I did about half the prompts last year after getting a late start. With the prompts coming out early I can probably do some thumbnail sketches as ideas hit me - hopefully that's not cheating. And anyway it's not like I have any other art to work on ... (LOL that's a joke. I have so many open projects right now.)

I need to make a batch of energy bars today. Tomorrow I'm considering baking up corn cookies. They're supposed to taste like sweetened corn flake cereal, so I'm on board for that. I doubt I'll do another major cake baking project until closer to Fox's birthday, and for that we're kinda-sorta thinking Christina Tosi's key lime pie cake from her All About Cake book. There's also a pumpkin pie cake, but I'm probably going to save my pumpkins for scones.

This is not the point where I'm going to dump on people who're excited about pumpkin spice everything time. It does seem a little early, but then I'm so ready for fall that I would be wearing sweaters to protest the fact that it's still summer if it weren't for probably dying of a heat stroke as soon as I step outside. For example, the heat index was 85 this morning before sunrise. I don't need to tell you how much that sucks. So yeah, very ready for fall and winter here. Summer is grinding me down.

Besides, I get all excited closer to Christmas when it's peppermint mocha everything time.

It's been an interesting couple of days here.

My futon arrived earlier than expected, on Tuesday evening, so I have had two nights of sleeping on it so far. I originally planned to put the futon on top of my memory foam pad, then transition to just futon on floor, but Fox suggested I try skipping directly to the floor, which I did. I think the futon I slept on in Tokyo was a bit thicker, but I'm actually not that uncomfortable. I slept pretty poorly the first night, but the cats were also driving me bonkers. Not only have I moved my bed now, I've got a different bed that's right on the floor, so I have really messed with their Kitty Feng Shui. (or is that fang shui?) But last night I slept well and I'm not suffering any ill effects. And I was able to sleep on my side some, so I'll probably get used to the hardness of the surface soon enough.

The futon also serves very well as a zabuton. Then it rolls up and gets stowed in the closet during the day. I'll probably want to air mine out once a week or so. During the summer it's too humid here to do that outside, but I intend to prop it up on a drying rack indoors and let the AC do its work. I'm also pleased that removing the memory foam pad has fixed the warmth problem I was having. Between that pad and the weighted blanket, I was getting incredibly hot and sweaty at night. Memory foam holds heat, which is probably ideal if you live in a cold place, but it wasn't working out for me.

We recently started repairing some fencing, with one goal being to get the garden fence in good condition before I start growing autumn crops. While discussing things with Fox he asked if I didn't want some more raised beds or mounds made over on the east side of the house, and suggested that with the tractor it would be much easier now to upgrade from a couple of garden beds to more like a hobby farm. So that's going to be fun. We're spending this weekend working on digging post holes and running fence, but mainly doing it in the morning and evening so as to avoid the soul-crushing heat of the day.

And finally, as I feared, the Wine & Dine races at Disney are cancelled. We re-opened too early, but no one was listening to that, and tHe EcOnOmY iS iMpOrTaNt. Anyway, we're passing on the virtual option - I'm not excited about the medal designs, and it's kind of expensive for a DIY race. Of course it's going to be much harder now to stick to my running schedule, so I may look for another, smaller local race. I'm also likely to do the half marathon that weekend anyway, and just stay with my current training plan. I'm just frustrated with all the nitwits in this stupid country - we could have actually been back open and everyone safe if they'd just stayed the fuck at home and done as they were asked.

I know people are losing their lives and losing friends and family to this thing, and I'm over here whining about missing out on an overpriced foot race. :/

Anyway, more fence work today. I'm also trying to get a couple of illustrations done that I'd started before getting going on the new comic. I also have a short thing I'm probably going to self-publish as a zine. Getting back into the zine community has been fun - I used to collect them! I still have a few, and just emailed some artists for copies of theirs. I've got recommendations for a printer that handles small batches of books and comics, and it looks like they will print my thing up for just under a hundred bucks, full color. Anyway, I've got a few more character designs I want to finalize.

My pumpkins are still looking good. There are three out there, one of which is on the small side but it's almost a uniform buff-orange color so it should be ready to pick soon.

Since I'm having one of my "throw out all the things" fits, I thought I would take some time to look at practical re-arrangement ideas for my room.

I have a few different ideas going here so bear with me. First up, I have an almost-walk-in closet. It's narrow, but long, probably about six or seven feet long, so there is actually a lot of under-utilized space there. I'm considering a few things with it.

Once I have my futon, I can roll the mattress and pad up each morning and stow them in the closet. The closet also has enough room that if I were to build or acquire some drawers or shelves, I could empty the contents of my dresser and get the dresser out of my room. I don't have a ton of clothes, either hanging or folded since I have a somewhat spare wardrobe. I already have a hanging shoe rack that would hold my two pairs of boots and four pairs of Chucks. So, bed gone. Dresser gone.

I can move the book case into the studio, since it mostly contains books about art and illustration, manga, comics anthologies, and the like. Book case gone. Significant floor space remains.

Now it can be a yoga and meditation space. I have always kind of wanted this. Right now I have all my yoga stuff in the rec room, but that's a problematic place for me because if Fox is napping, I don't like to go in there and disturb him. And in summer it can be really uncomfortable, as that end of the house isn't well shaded. Moving all that into the bedroom not only gives me that space, but it allows me to shut the door if I wish (so I can try to meditate while cats dig at the bottom of the door and meow) and be out of everyone's way.

And the final element of all this is one I kind of hate to admit, but sometimes when things have lost their usefulness to you, you have to let them go. I might get rid of my collage and assemblage stuff - my shrine making materials. I don't know where or how, but I haven't made a box in four years now. I barely touch the cartons of items, and the files of paper and cloth are just shuffled around from one place to another. Question is, where to take this stuff - it's not trash, so someone somewhere will be able to use it, I just need to find out what to do with it. Making shrines was a big deal for me for a long time, and it helped me work through a lot of things going on in my life, but I think I'm done with that now. So I need to re-home the supplies, preferably with someone who'll use them. And yes, if you're reading this and thinking you'd like some of this stuff, drop me a comment. I'll be happy to describe or take photos for you.

The more I think about it, the more I like the idea. Of course I still have a desk, which I don't see much reason to get rid of, as it's actually very useful as a spot to write, use my laptop, etc. I might grab some bookends to prop up the journals I'm currently writing in, and I have a small "accidental" Ganesh shrine going on one side. Weirdly, I have like ... three or four Ganesh statues around the house. When did Ganesh make himself at home here? *scratches head*

So yeah, if you know some artsy person who wants a whole giant crapload of assemblage items (think Joseph Cornell type stuff) let me know. And if you have seen any cool home yoga studio ideas, hit me up with links or photos. Meantime I'm going to go measure the closet.

Deviant Art: Hey! Artists not only have the ability to create, but also to inspire. Now, more than ever, it's important that we as a community do what we can to lift people's spirits. That's why we're launching "Start With Love" – an aspirational poster challenge to show how to maintain empathy, compassion, and love during this global health crisis. The challenge will illustrate how we can all spread love and positivity, despite the tough times we are going through together :)

Me: Okay.

DA: It can help promote a positive attitude, bring the community together, and it'll be FUN! :D

Me: Uh huh.

DA: We'll give you a special profile badge.

Me:

I'm exhausted. I am not sleeping as much at night as I need to, and part of the problem is that while I get tired and get into bed at my usual clock time, I am not falling asleep like I used to, so I may need to go back on melatonin for a while until my body resets. Of course, the other beneficial thing to do would be to abolish the time changes, but you've already heard this rant from me. And if you ever followed me on LiveJournal, you've been hearing it for the last twenty years! Huzzah, have a cookie.

Today in Stress Baking, I am going to whip up some protein bars. I follow this formula from No Meat Athlete with the slight modification that I find them a bit dry and add a little more peanut butter and sometimes a shot of almond milk to loosen the mixture up. My personal flavor preference is for cocoa powder and almond extract, which gives them a sort of amaretto chocolate taste, but vanilla is perfectly tasty, too. Later this week I'm making my blackberry tart, and I found a recipe for blondies that calls for the addition of crystallized ginger candy, which sounds amazing.

I also missed my morning yoga for several days but I'm back to it. Normally my rule is "don't miss two in a row," but sometimes exceptions have to be made to every rule. I can tell that I did, though, when I do anything that flexes and puts weight on my shoulders, I can feel the left one complaining. Gentle complaining, but it's still there. Recently I was reading an article about gut mobility and running. If you think about the general body movement of running, you can see why it's beneficial to have internal organs that can shift and move without too much problem. People develop issues when trauma causes adhesions, though. I had always wondered what those were, and it explained that any tissue that endures trauma can develop adhesions through a chemical bonding process, and the result bond between tissues can be stronger even than scar tissue. So when the physical therapist told me that my repeated falls on that shoulder weren't the cause of my troubles, they were only partly right. While I didn't actually damage the joint, I apparently DID traumatize the shoulder enough that - you guessed it - adhesions formed. The shoulder has a shroud of tissue that stretches as it moves, and then folds up when it's at rest, and it is structured sort of like a pleated cheerleader's skirt. In my case, that's the thing that is damaged.

Normally today would be a day for running errands, but I'm probably not going anywhere. The schools are closed this week, and next week is their scheduled spring break, so I'm not going to pick up the neighbor's kids, either. Fox and I may venture out Friday just for looky-loos and to grab a few things at Walmart. In all my preparation, I neglected to check how much soy sauce we had. Can't survive an apocalypse without soy sauce.

I also ... may have bought some books. I've been very good about my personal "dumb shit" spending, but I blame stress. I picked up some used books through Amazon Marketplace, and found that there are a lot of Friends of the Library programs that use it, possibly as an alternative to on-site book sales. Anyway, I bought some volumes of 1960's era poster art and print advertising illustration, and a Dark Mountain anthology. I would love to get my grubby claws on Rian Hughes' books on lifestyle illustration and typography of the 50s and 60s but hot damn they're expensive. Anyway, all that will be landing on my doorstep this week.

I had this idea earlier about pet portraits or furry pieces. I've seen a lot of great pictures people are doing of animals in medieval or Renaissance costume, high fantasy outfits, etc. But what might be fun is to offer mid-century modern portraits. Mad Men-type suits and dresses, dirty hippies, mod British swingers, etc. Beehive hairdos, psychedelic color schemes, Pushpin Studios-style stuff. I dunno, maybe no one will really bite, but it would be fun to try.